.: Sailing through the Yasawa Islands

Happy Summer to everyone. Tomorrow is supposed to be a “super-moon” which means that it will be the closest to the horizon and 5 times as big as other times throughout the year. We’ll have to see if that happens.

Locals going to work for the day

We spent two more days in beautiful Manta Ray Bay. Here we are looking out for the daily visit of the giant Manta Ray’s. (I posted the video a few days ago below this posting). What an incredible experience.

The beach at Manta Bay Resort

We all went over for Happy Hour at the resort

Following Happy Hour we were guests of Eddy and Glenda on s/v Helena to share Eddy’s homemade beer.

A fun evening of dancing and laughing was had by all. After this Eddy and Glenda headed south.

For our final Manta Ray evening, Riki had us over on sv Guava Jelly.

He made the mistake of pulling out his Jim Bean. After just a few shots Peter was already singing “it’s time to switch to whiskey…I’ve been drinking beer all night” Notice in the picture (below) how close QuickStar is to Guava Jelly. Not surprising to any of our SunDance friends, who have witnessed Peter and whiskey in action, is that David and Suzie had to escort Peter & I home in our dinghy (after he fell into it and lost his sunglasses). We all had a wild and crazy time and Peter has sworn off whiskey...until the next time.

In the beginning…

A few hours later….

The following morning at Manta Ray Bay was spent doing the blog from the resort (Peter providing technical assistance)

Cute Turtle statue made out of a tree

Final sunset at Manta Ray Bay. Peter doesn’t like to be in the water at this time which he calls “big fish time” I LOVE it!

Arriving in to Blue Lagoon – breathtakingly beautiful

We went grocery shopping here, which involved a 20 minute dinghy ride across to an island and then a 10 minute motor through a mangrove forest to get to the farm.

The farm is run by Milly and Teanco (and their adorable 3 year old Lea). Lea was like my shadow for the whole visit, and I loved it!

It doesn’t get any fresher than this

Mom & Lea choosing our vegetables

Lea collecting them and putting them in Peter’s bag

Laying them out on the table (only $12.00 worth – which is equivalent to about $7.00 Canadian for all this fresh produce)

David and Suze with their produce

Cuddling with Lea and her little puppy (missing my grandmunchkins even more!)

That evening we decided to host an impromptu Happy Hour on our boat. Peter brought out the Crown Royal (to ensure Riki left in the same shape from QuickStar that Peter did from Guava Jelly, ha,ha). This was the original bottle that our son Danny brought on the departure from Vancouver in 2007 and he’ll be happy to hear that it is finally gone. (P.S. Peter didn't partake)

The next morning we had an incredible rainbow

We pulled up anchor and headed off further north to the isolated Sawa-i-lau Island, home of the famous caves. There are two large caves that you have to climb up stairs to get in to. It is a popular tourist activity, but because we are considered “locals”, we were able to go in after all the crowds had left so that we had the place to ourselves, along with Riki. The caves are kind of eerie, since it is quite dark when you jump in with your snorkel gear. After swimming in the first larger cave you then have to swim under water and in to a second cave. This is a bit freaky since it is pitch dark and even the lights from the guides are hard to see. Once in the 2^nd cave, it is completely black and much narrower. Kylie did this on her visit to Fiji and said there were lots of dead spiders, but luckily we didn’t encounter any of these.

The caves are located within this little mountain

The anchorage is just gorgeous with a wonderful little lagoon right behind us.

Heading in to the village

We presented our Sevu Sevu to the Chief. I don’t have a picture of performing this ceremony in this village but Riki sent me one of us doing it in Waya. This gives you an idea of the protocol once you enter a village.

Once accepted, you are free to walk throughout the village and are considered part of the community.

Our first stop was at the primary school, which has 50 students. This is quite amazing, since the entire village including teenagers and adults is only about 100.

School library

They have a wonderful system where the students all spend one hour a day doing “chores”. Each responsibility is rotated each week, so that by the end of the school year each child has a chance to contribute including cleaning washrooms, cleaning blackboards, ringing the bell, gardening, cutting the lawn, etc. etc. You can read some of the chores on the blackboard below, with the principal. The school looks great and the kids all have a sense of responsibility. When we were there it was during this hour of “chores” and we were totally impressed with how hard each child was working. Would be a great system back home!

Next stop: the church with our tour guide Lesli

Village walk with Riki

The following morning, we woke to a dead-calm ocean. We have never seen it this calm before.

Great morning sunrise

Later that afternoon we were going to go for a kayak trip, but the weather looked pretty iffy, so we just took our dinghy and went exploring the lagoon. The unique rock formations were also a first for us.